It is known that coat hooks are used within the interior of an automobile. These coat hooks are used to hang various items, including clothing and other articles of wear. The coat hooks are typically mounted to the interior ceiling or side walls of the automobile. In the past, the coat hooks were often mounted in a fixed relationship to the automobile interior with the hook extending outwardly from the automobile interior. More recently, retractable coat hooks have been used within the automobile interior to provide a hook that is extendable from a stored position to an extended position. These coat hooks are likewise retractable from the extended position to the stored position. These known hooks are mounted to and stored within a housing that was, in turn, mounted to the automobile interior. By manual application, such as pressing on the end of the hook, the hook would release from the stored position and extend outward from the housing to the open position. With some known retractable coat hooks, a damper was used to control the speed of the hook as it released from the stored position.
The known retractable coat hooks have several drawbacks. For instance, in order to cause the hook to release from the stored position and likewise retract back to the stored position within the housing, multiple components are required such as, pins, springs, and wireforms. Many of these components are mounted external to the housing and are exposed to inadvertent damage. For other retractable coat hooks, multiple, complex components are needed such as gear assemblies that require several gear components to control the extending and retracting of the hook. Because of the use of the multiple and complex components, the known retractable coat hooks require special assembly and have an overall high cost application. The present invention is directed at overcoming these and other known drawbacks with existing retractable coat hooks for use in automobiles or other applications.